Individuals confined to a wheelchair by reason of injury or disease still must cope with normal excretory functions, a dilemma faced by both the alert homebound patient and the institutionalized patient. The person must be positioned or moved to a toilet or commode seat, an operation requiring one or two attendants. This is particularly true for a person who is unable to stand, such as one who is paralyzed by reason of spinal injury or who suffers from a condition such as multiple sclerosis.
A number of solutions to this problem have been proposed, including various "commode chairs" or "invalid chairs". See, for example, U.S. Pat. Nos. 341,135 to Ellison; 557,614 to Schmitt; 601,312 to Beall; 1,691,620 to Wilson; 3,245,090 to Slimmer; 3,271,785 to Du Bose; 2,880,783 to Schwinn; 3,158,398 to Stryker; and 4,296,506 to Stoute et al.
These previous proposals have required (i) a specially designed commode, (ii) the movement of the patient to another chair or commode, or (iii) the repositioning, generally involving lifting, of the patient to permit introduction into the wheelchair of a specialized seat or container. These previous proposals have proven to be less than satisfactory in that the structures are designed as commodes rather than wheelchair seats and fail to provide the requisite support for a patient in long-term use. As a result, common practice often involves nothing more than the use of the conventional bedpan, or simply ignoring the patient who then unavoidable soils clothing, wheelchair, and floor. Moreover, none of these prior devices, with the exception of that of Stoute et al., is suitable for the foldable wheelchairs now so widely in use. Stoute et al. describe an invalid chair having a flexible padded seat with a generally rectangular opening defined therein and a wastereceiving receptacle disposed below it. While Stoute et al.'s device is a major advance, its flexible seat provides inadequate support for a patient who spends long periods of time in the wheelchair. Moreover, the Stoute et al. device requires a relatively high degree of dexterity to attend to and complete the manipulations involved in removing the container and closing the flap of the Stoute et al. device.